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The new shop was splendiferous. It had all people could imagine about pets and stuff, pets most people wouldn’t have imagined existed. There was even a whole division for the pets health, with permanent vets…

The “Rent’a Pet Shop, Boy!” was taking a whole building, with no less than thirteen storeys, and when Sidonie entered the huge hall at the ground floor, which was slightly above the waters’ level, she was awed by the quantity of animals which where stored in the facility.
She didn’t know what she wanted for a start and now she was beginning to feel lost.

A beautiful tall black woman, with short hair and wearing an ample avocado-coloured boubou and carrying a little dog close to her chest passed by her and Sidonie could hear her muttering apparently incoherent bits to herself
— Come on Chumpy, the doctor said it will be alright after that surgery, here, here little thing, breathe, breathe and say YES… Oh Lordy, I’m gonna be late, and Sam will be bugged if I make him wait in his friend’s flying car…

Sidonie was mesmerized by the woman, who suddenly turned to face her and said winkingly “I’d rather not go for a squawking parrot if I were you, they can’t keep quiet… and not a magpie either… Al said this new breeds of nine-tailed foxes are great, but I can’t really get used to anything else but dogs… Oh, I must go, need to have the last alterations done on my wedding gown… How can they expect that I remember all of this!”

And the woman went running out of the shop…

Sidonie was baffled… A nine-tailed fox… Why not, sounded like a nice idea. At least, she could start by renting it, and if it was a nice companion and Tonio was OK with it, she would adopt it…

She asked a vendor where was the fox section. The vendor took a very professional look to ask her if she meant the new genetically engineered breed of foxes, or the classical breeds, desert, arctic or continental…
Sidonie was lost for a moment, then remember the lady had said they were new breeds, so she asked for the new ones in an intimidated voice.

— Upstairs, thirteenth floor, on your right after the jump said the vendor and beware of the shrimpigators

Before leaving the castle, the fake Viscountess needed to check something on the skull…
Was it a genuine one? She had almost trusted the so-called experts of the auction room, while she knew perfectly well that they only could see what they knew. And they didn’t know as much as her.

To her knowledge, there was only a handful of genuine old crystal skulls. But counterfeits were legions and a plague for such a skillful cat burglar as she was. Well, cat-burglar,… perhaps not as acrobatically as she used to… As a matter of fact, her life-long search for these skulls had suffered the competition of a little embonpoint… — the good thing being that those few sticky superfluous pounds had been perfect to impersonate the Viscountess.
In the past, she had come across a few of these fake skulls and most of them bore very similar indications leaving her to think stakes were high that they were coming from the same con-artist.

She methodically drew a little dagger from a scabbard at her belt. Going to one of the window, she drew one of the curtains a few inches to reveal the pale sun of Shropshire which was already fading.
Then, she turned the jeweled hilt in such a special manner that a soft clicking sound was heard, and a beam of light started to converge from the sun rays into the dagger. She directed the ray coming from the tip of the dagger’s blade into the bottom of the skull, and hold her breath in expectation.

Soon the skull started to glow a bluish light, and light poured out of the skull onto the walls in dancing symbols, while a soft buzzing sound was being heard around, started to drown her in a slightly dissociated state.
She cut the dagger’s beam very quickly, her heart pounding at the validation. It was a genuine skull. One of the six.

She had to hurry, she needed to proceed on her investigations to find the missing ones.

The trunk was there. She took another key that she had around her neck, leaving the first one on the cupboard’s lock for the Viscountess to be freed as soon as she would be out.
With the key, she proceeded to open the high-tech lock of the armored trunk which opened with a blow of air.

Her jumpsuit was here, along with the two turbo-reactor powered condor-wings that she strapped on her jumpsuit in very professional movements.

A few moments later, with her big dark sunglasses that gave her the appearance of an obese fly, Carla was flying high over the countryside of England, enjoying the soft gliding on the slightly damp air.

As soon as she’d come back from her trip, Dory had planned to travel again very soon.
Of course, she had enjoyed tremendously being home, being with Dan and young Becky… yes, she had… the first day for sure…
Well… She was a born wanderer, she couldn’t do against her own nature, no need to beat herself for that, and feel guilty for leaving Dan and Becky periodically. Hopefully, Becky was very understanding, and perhaps that the fact that Dory was her stepmother made things easier for them both, without burdening their relationship with useless obligations towards one another.

On the other side, many exciting destinations were on her list, and she barely knew where to start. One that had attracted her curiosity was the site of Jiroft in Iran, where the famed lost Kingdom of Aratta had been supposedly found very recently. Artifacts had been discovered on this site, predating our commonly supposed invention date of written language, which had fascinated Dory for a while, before she got lost amidst the wide spectrum of her other interests.

Well, all of this was of frenzying interest, but there were dogs and back issues…
Somehow, Dory had been struggling with lots of tensions in her back, and the more she forced herself moving, the worse the pain was. Finally beaten by herself, when no one else, friend, family or doctor could accomplish such a feat, she was stuck to a cushioned armchair for most of the day holding to her pain as to a stuck parasitic hated friend.
And then, there was the dogs.
As she was barely able to move, Dan had renounced to have her come with him and Becky to see Sabine, Becky’s mother, in Mallorca, where she had invited them for the Epiphany.
Secretly, Dory was happy to have to stay at home, and not to have to make pleasing faces to the horrid obsessive woman she could only stand a few minutes without having to go out and empty a whole pack of cigarettes to calm her down.
The only little drawback was that she had to take care of the dogs… And she was running short of dog’s food…

Before leaving, Dan had left her a phone number of their new neighbours, a batty couple of Brits who had just rented the farm nearby, and with whom Dan was occasionally playing golf and lending a hand in small DIY work.
Reluctantly, Dory took the post-it and smiled at the familiar handwriting of Dan…

BEATTIE & LEONORA FLETCHER : 933-157-821

She composed the number in a deliberate slow motion, which strangely felt very empowering.

— Hello! a quavering male voice answered
— Err… Mr Fletcher?
— Ms Fletcher,… herself, what can I do for you?
— I’m Dorothy Mc Leane, one of your neighbour, you probably know my…
— Oh, yes! Dorothy, may I call you Dorothy, Dan spoke of you so much that we were very eager to meet you, weren’t we Leo?

A ruffling sound behind Beattie Fletcher seemed to approve.

— And is there anything we could do for you?
— Well, I’m awfully embarrassed to have to ask you, but I’m stuck at home, and my dogs don’t have much food left…
— Oh my dear! You did so very well to call us, didn’t she Leo? We’ll be at your home in a few minutes!
— But…
— Oh, no need to thank us for that, it’s all natural, after all that your delightful husband did for us! We see you in a moment…

And with that the line was cut. Dory was a bit disconcerted by the strange couple, but decided to dance with what was coming to her doorstep (wishing it would not be flamenco), seeing that having placed these quaint people in her reality could not entirely be a stroke of wild madness… If only…

Somewhere during the 23 ^rd century

“aaa AAAA AAAAA Tcheeeew !”
…
“Hiiiiii?! Oh Fracking NOOOoooo!”

The shriek had been heard in the whole facility.

Phefia Beryl was the first on the spot where Vinya Grey had been playing so exuberantly with her vocal chords.

— Vinnie? Are you alright?… What just happened?
— Oh, Pheffy… I think I made an awful blunder…
— What do you mean?
— You know, my last experiment?
— The g…
— Yes!
— What?!
— They poofed away…
— Away?… You mean, all of them? Oh bugger…

A few minutes later, Vinya and Phefia were around a white table sucking on straws picked into white and red polystyrenoid balls.

— Vinnie, you look terrible… That last geomagnetic storm had not done very good on your DNA I’m afraid.
— And the worse is that each time I sneeze, I blow up wormholes… I thought it would go better very quickly, but last one was big and lasted long enough to let the whole experimental herd wander off in another time/space and/or dimension…
— Yeah, that’s pretty bad… But wherever they went, they probably will die very soon… Imagine… With their stiff legs anytime they see something frightening, I guess a mere mapgie could easily have them for dinner…
— Such a pity… I was close to doing something great with them… When we discovered these fossilized blue spiders, I knew it was the first step.
— Bwah, this rehydrated frogrog is the grossest thing I’ve ever drunk… But yeah you’re right, the first results were very promising. The spiders venom could provoke very random and deep mutations.
— And all we needed was a little more control on the direction of the mutations.
— Anyway they’re just goats… You possibly can’t have breached a cosmic law with a handful of GOATS…
— Hope so Pheffy, hope so…

San Demangelo, 1848

Elroy was laughing… Hey Joe, Twi! he shouted A letter from Uncle Ernie!

— Uncle Ernie? How’s the old bat doin’? asked Twilight
— He’s sending his greetings for the new year, and babbling about last dead people in the neighborhood. But there’s something funny. He’s saying that he’d just acquired some funny goats. Like popped in, out of nowhere. At first he’d thought of a joke, but apparently no one’s been claiming them. He’d thought them dead, they were a dozen laying stiff on the ground, but when they started to wake up, they went down again like broken dolls. Apparently the magpies on top of the tree had been scaring them. Ahaha… Where does he get such strange stories…
— Well, magpies are scarey, Twilight said meaningfully, with a side glance at Joe…
— Whatever… At least he’d been giving us a good laugh. He’s saying he’s gonna breed the horny beasts, and start a Fainting Goat Fair (or FGF) in Marshall County. Perhaps we could get there next Thanksgiving…
— Depends when the Freak Show’s coming to town, mused Twilight, I hope to see them soon…

“Hang on a minute” he shouted to his friends as soon as they were out of the grocery store, burden with the loads of the bags.
Molly, Harvey and Francis looked puzzled at their foreign friend.
Then with a shrug, Harvey sat on a pile of snow that had fallen from the roof, and leaned against one of the pillars of the square place dimly lit by a buzzing orange light.

He run to the chalet on the left, which was apparently closed, but he knew there would probably be someone in there.
He opened the creaking door, not startled by the bells tinkling at his left ear, and went straight to the counter, as though he had always known the place. A young man with a goatee was there, busy sorting old papers for the annual closing of the hostel.

— Do you have a glass of water please? the stranger asked
— Oh yes, sure… And with that?

The man seemed to expect an answer… The stranger felt as if he knew that answer…

— Yes… one of your… you know… chocolate things, with the wolf on it.
— Exactly! the tenant was smiling.

The stranger fumbled in his pocket, not having thought of requiring any money for a glass of water. But now…
Phew, there was a coin in his left pocket. He drew it out, looked at it… A 3 euros coin? He didn’t know such a currency existed…

— Oh, I won’t have the change I fear, the man answered… But I can make you a credit memo.

He had no idea he would come back here soon, but the familiar place as much as the obliging man made him think that anything would be okay. At worse, he would have lost a few euros, which was no big loss.

— Sure.

The man showed him a red ticket, and leaning on the counter, proceeded with some explanations.

— This is your credit memo. Additionally, as the hostel won’t be fully rented, you can use this as a reservation for next week. It’s for Mr Arkandin. You will be able to enter the special exhibit and join the guided tour. It’s a laying down travel. People are expected to go nowhere, yet they will travel. Pillows and blankets will be provided.

He had a strange image in his mind of people laying on their backs and gliding on the floor in patterns leaving some tracks on the ground with various colours.

— It is supposed to show people some beliefs about monogamy. And keeping track of their own travels…

That was most puzzling… He wasn’t sure he would still be here next week, but that sounded intriguing enough to not be thrown in the bin right away…
He thanked the man after having had his glass of water and putting the wolf-brand candy and red square of paper in his pocket.

— There you are, sighed Molly, and what have taken you so long?

Home, at last… Bernie Eleonara Mynd, Viscountess of Shropshire sighed, dropping her hairy salmon coloured hermine fur coat to the butler.
— Now, leave me alone Vigor, I don’t want to be disturbed.
— Madam, Vigor bowed deferentially

A smoking teapot of fine herb tea was prepared on the glass coffee table just near a black silk pouch. With a greedy look on her face, she untied voraciously the pouch to reveal the crystal skull she had just acquired.
After a few seconds of beholding the priceless possession, she lifted the teapot lid with a stiff face which eventually smiled blissfully at the smell of the fine Earl Fuchsia crop which was infusing.

Good Lord, that trip was exhausting!… she growled in a very deep voiced that suddenly sounded more male than before.
Didn’t know I had to go as far as Spain to get that darn skull!

Bernie suddenly ripped her fine chignon from her head, revealing a bald head with a few short black hair on the top. She spitted her false teeth, peeled off some wrinkled patches of latex skin, smeared the mascara around her globular eyes and scratched her crotch…

A ruffled sound and a “mmm mmm” suddenly caught her attention off the itchy body parts.

She went to the cupboard, drew a key dangling from a necklace deeply buried inside her ample bosom, then stopped for a moment, and muttered a “bugger” before unbuttoning her tight blouse and removing the corset that was constraining her breath.
Smiling wickedly, she proceeded to open the cupboard, but recoiled at a pale tied and muzzled figure who looked much similar to whoever she was impersonating.

Oh, Lordy, what a stench! There’s no point in making such a fuss Viscountess, this will soon be over… I just needed a few things, and will soon be off, tonight to be precise…

The pale figure whined with pleading eyes.

Oh, just don’t make these eyes at me…

Bugger! I can’t bother with her now, she said to herself, closing the cupboard’s door oblivious to the plaintiff whines. Now, got to move on real quick, before they realize something was wrong with the transaction.

Juan had insisted that they all spent Christmas together before Paqui and Joselito went for their trip. He felt that there was more to this trip that he could grasp, and wanted to share these precious moments now, not wanting to live on regrets.
Now, the new year was here, and he was alone. At least, he’d been more than glad to see Claudio move out. It had all been a lot easier than he’d thought at first. Obviously, when Paquita had said to that maggot that she was going to accompany Joselito to his trip on the whachaname-Kikkoo Island, Claudio had been outraged, probably thinking a good playing victim act would soon make things right for him.
But he’d been wrong altogether. It was not about love for him or the other. It was all about freedom and being what she wanted. And emotional blackmail very quickly proved besides the point.
His father had been proud at Paquita. Her decision obviously was made, and it had been the first time he had seen the frail girl unwavering at the arguments.

The situation had soon proved unbearable for Claudio, who had no longer any reason for hanging around Juan and Paqui’s house, and one day he’d moved out, rather discreetly, not to be heard again. Somehow, Juan was aware of the town’s gossips, that he had acquired some unexpected sum of money, not sure if all very legally, but the thing was that he had decided to take his chances by going some said to Nicaragua, others to Brazil or even to the US…
But who really cared?

On his plane for Valparaiso, Claudio was looking at the letter he’d found in the family trunk. It was a brief correspondence between his grand-father and a certain Cillian Mc Gaughran, and it was linked to the skull he had sold such a handsome price. Perhaps he could get more information about them, if the recluse old man was still alive, that is…

All he remembered was the name “Akita”… He was not sure that it was his name, perhaps it was not, but he had taken it as his own.
He’d been stranded on that island for so long he barely remembered whether he’d had a past before. In the beginning, he had taken an inventory of the passing time, but soon had discovered that days were irregularly long, and nights would sometimes last for more than one day, so that it was all pointless…
The toughest part had been to live in good intelligence —he couldn’t really say harmony— with the predatory hairy nest of the daughters of Narani. But at least he’d made clear that he was able to defend himself and retaliate if needed…

— Thanks to me, grunted a big dog half-focused, his head on his lap.
— Yeah, mostly thanks to you, Kay

Kay had appeared a few days after Akita discovered himself on that strange land. He was no common dog… In fact, Akita was wondering that it may only exist in his mind. Kay had been approaching him, more than he had tamed it, and soon Akita found out that he was no dog at all.
He was, as Kay had said, an inugami or dog spirit, able to shape-shift, and willing to bond with Akita. He’s said Akita his previous owner had died, and that he would have to die with him unless being adopted by another…
Akita had been reluctant at first, finding that there was something unclear, but he had agreed anyway… Better be with a faithful and powerful dog-spirit than die in the webs of the giant spiders…
All he had to do was to name it. And so he named it Kay.
Kay couldn’t be seen by most of the creatures in the forest, though the most sensitive could feel his presence. However, he could decide to take a more corporeal form, but that exhausted both Akira and Kay, and was rarely done. So most of the times, he was roaming the island in spirit form, which didn’t mean that he was powerless, far from it.

— I can sense something’s coming, growled Kay who took the shape of a big two-legged werewolf…